Comparative Law and Climate Change

Abstract

This chapter aims at identifying the epistemological role held by comparative law in relation to climate change. In fact, legal scholarship has traditionally channeled its efforts on the climate legal regimes at the international and, more recently, local level. Surprisingly, little attention has been given to a more comprehensive comparative appraisal which shall consider, among others, the political, cultural and historical elements that come into play with regard to the development of national and supra-national climate laws and policies. Drawing lessons from Mauro Bussani’s reflections on global rule-making processes and comparative tort law, the chapter will hopefully explain why and how comparative law should deploy its unmatchable power as a cognitive instrument, both in theory and in practice, to provide a deeper understanding of the legal phenomena embedded in the climate change arena.